7 Big Learnings I Got from My Fitness Training

I keep myself physically fit. It has not been always like that; it is rather a new value in my life which I step by step adopted during past 3 years. I go to gym 5 times a week and I keep my diet lean. On top of that I use the guidance of my personal trainer. With him I started to take fitness more seriously and what was initially just a hobby became a new lifestyle.

Why am I talking about this on a career related page? Because your physical wellbeing has an impact on your state of mind. And if you feel good, this will influence your performance at work. No rocket science, right? Dealing with difficult life situations or simply keeping your positive attitude can be much easier if you are fit. Moreover, physical training is 90 % about how you work with your brain. So, there is a lot I learned in my fitness training and I actively benefit from it in my career.

Here they are – 7 big learnings I got from my fitness training:

Find a coach – When you want to truly improve in any area of your life, find the person who is going to help you. It should be somebody who has already the expertise to share. The coach should be able to explain you every single bit of their shared expertise (to teach you in fact) and to follow your improvements. It may eventually cost you a lot, but the investment will be worth once you see the results.

Have a plan – When you train, you have to have it planned carefully to get to the finish line. My trainer carefully examined me at the beginning of our sessions in order to learn which body areas need more attention. ‘Can you do squat and push up? Nop…ok, we will work on this.’ This is how we started. Our trainings are never random, they are organized – they follow a plan. The good thing about having a plan is that when you see your results, you know exactly how you got there. So you always create the best practice (or a bad one in case of failures) that you can reuse or share with others.

Focus and be patient – Something like muscle gain is a slow process. It ain’t visible immediately (unless you are on steroids – but that is cheating). You will actually notice the change at one point. But for a very long time you just need to focus on your plan and be patient. By adopting such attitude you are learning not to rush and proceed step by step in your efforts. In other words: Stay cool and trust the process!

Quality is better than quantity – Many times my trainer warned me: ‘If you learn how to do the exercise in a low range only, muscles will adapt to this.’ He motivated me to do my routine properly and with a high intensity, instead of doing many repetitions with a low intensity. This is to say that if you are fine to take something less seriously then do it with a low intensity; it will eventually get you somewhere. But if you take your goals seriously, no cheating will help you. Only quality of your hard work will pay out.

You have to fail first – I can’t do push-ups. No matter what, this work out is extremely difficult for me. ‘People are afraid of failure,’ my trainer said. ‘You gotta fail a couple of times to finally reach your goal. Try to go down and fail. One time you won’t fail and push yourself up.’ Do I have to say any more to prove how good this learning is for my career? We shall learn from our failures and mistakes and keep on going. Once it will pay back and will be we grateful for all our failures.

Nobody said it would be easy – This is my trainer’s favorite phrase. And he definitely thought me how to push my limits big time! And that’s it: How badly you want that job? How much motivated you are? Uneasy tasks will test your attitude. In the end – if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. So there is something special about uneasy task. Well and can you imagine that feeling when I finished my first pull up? Priceless!

Criticism is for your good – And last but not least. Peter criticizes me a lot. Sometimes he drives my nerves or even upsets me. But after a day or two I always conclude: Hmm this is good for you, you can indeed do better. If we are able to accept criticism and take the positive side of it, we can become mature in any area of our live. Including our career.

I hope this inspired you in your career development or perhaps motivated you to become more fit :-). In any case, good luck in your efforts!